Junior Juliette Dallas-Feeney, a Hatchet columnist, discusses the dynamics of rape on college campuses and argues for GW’s SACC to increase its profile.
Last week, an 18-year-old Hofstra University student told police she had been gang-raped by five men in a residence hall bathroom. A few days later, she recanted her story and said the sex was consensual.
The story made national headlines, with some arguing over who was at fault for the debacle. Charges may be levied against the accuser, but the real question that should be asked is why would this woman make such an accusation and then retract it in the span of a few days? The possibilities are endless. Maybe she had consensual sex with the men, freaked out and cried rape, and then took it back. Maybe she just didn’t want to deal with the intense emotional stress and media frenzy that a rape trial so often involves, and thought that retracting her statement would avoid that.
It’s a shame that Ms. Dallas-Feeny doesn’t realize what the crime in this situation was, and that she has completely minimized who the “victim’s” were in this case.
The crime here, was a young woman who falsely accused 5 young men of rape. Just so everyone is clear, THERE WAS NO RAPE. So please explain to me, without being sexist, how this should be a reason to highlight rape? Shouldn’t this be a reason to highlight false accusations?
As to the question as to why she falsely accused, what does it matter? Would you similarly want to know why someone raped? Doubtful. Regardless of the reasons she falsely accused (which by the way, was to cover up her sexual indiscretion with her boyfriend), she has committed a crime. She deserves to serve some jail time for it. And no, she didn’t retract becasue of the stress and media frenzy, she retracted because of the video proof that it was consensual.
The lack of journalistic integrity in this piece is lamentable. I would assume that someone who is a ‘columnist’ would have a little bit better idea of what reasearch is.
I agree with Mr. Berkimer above. In fact, it has since come to light that the woman in question retracted her claims because of video evidence disproving them:
http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/hofstra.university.danmell.2.1209055.html
The Hatchet must issue a correction. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.